When my ears are ringing
with the whine of your distress
the sound of wind against
your bowing ribs
the noise of sighs echoing
around the damp cavern of your mouth
your teeth
vibrating
stalactites and stalagmites
dripping
dripping
dripping

Hush
Hush
Black Dog

Our only respite is each other
my skin and bones
surrounding your wounded carcass
your hovering darkness
guarding what’s left of me
perpetual
feral
the shadowed face
of the moon
always turned away
from the blindness of the sun

There is more than mystery
in the zero
despite the pain
I ask you please

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The goal is for
both form and surface
to heat and cool
at the same rate
to grow and retract
in seamless
melding motion
creating a smooth bond

Life is more like raku
in application

adjustments coming
rapidly
and unexpectedly
small cracks
sending quiet pings
rippling around us
disturbing
with the sound of fracture
skins both thin and thick

(the irony is that if glaze is applied
too thickly
it enhances the crazing…
so the thicker the skin
the bigger the cracks
and there’s no escape
from that flaw
once it’s fired into place)

Rivers of seams
fractal out from our growth spurts
visual reminders
that change comes
and leaves its mark
when we grow too fast
for our skin to adjust

There is no polishing them away
and yet
we can delight in it
take deliberate pleasure
in both subtle and garish fissures
displaying our age
and experience
in such a visual way
no one can mistake them
for anything
but battle scars

No dismissive critic
drawling insults of our crazing
can understand our depth
and strength
or provenance

(c) RCGA 2016
Crazing is a spider web pattern of cracks penetrating the glaze. It is caused by tensile stresses greater than the glaze is able to withstand. ~”Ceramic Glaze Technology”

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There is an art inherent in everything. I will admit I have an extraordinarily high standard for texting. That’s not really my fault. I have experienced some outrageous texting partners, but by far my favorite, and perhaps partially because we were somewhat anonymous to each other and never spoke outside the medium, was a Spanish poet from California who texted with me for several months back in 2011. We no longer have any contact with each other, and haven’t since that year. I kept our conversations, and periodically I read them for inspiration. I’ve posted one before, but it’s been a long time, and so here is another, a conversation between a Latino and a Latina separated by many miles who never met one another but had a brief affair via text.

Here, they travel, from miles apart to city streets, into the desert and through a storm, to a jungle where they come together.

He:
Kissing you all over would be heaven.
Me:
You make me smile, mio, when you flirt.
You are torturing me from afar.
He:
Your lovely smile..
exciting, enticing..
Your curves…
sensuous & sexy
Me:
You have a way with you ~
like spice on the back of my tongue ~
a memory of something that hasn’t happened yet ~
cruising down my spine…
He:
your spine….
oh to kiss it…
your neck, your shoulders…
as I caress you.
Me:
Quietly, quietly we breathe
each other’s essence in the dark
learning, knowing
pleasure rising like waves of heat
from summer streets
He:
your passion lights fires within me…
your sensuality makes my heart race
your soft body envelopes me in ecstasy
Me:
Your eyes shimmer
a mirage I find myself thirsty for
as if you are the last drink of water
I might ever have
and you will go down so smoothly
soothing me
flowing into all the dry corners of my soul
He:
Your body & soul absorb me
As a cactus inhales desert rain
I, in turn, am nourished…
As u feed me passion & spirit
My sweet kisses dot your lovely face
Your smile kindles the embers of my desire
Me:
From afar I feel the storm approach
electric in the air
and then you sweep across me
like passionate rain
your mouth sliding down my skin
and nestling in secret places
your hands urging me
to lift myself into you
and fly
He:
Your taste, your scent drive me wild
Your touch excites
Your every move lets me know…
Your desire, your passion
Our flight… unearthly… known only to the ancient gods
Me:
The gods have called us
a sacrifice to love
we flee into the jungle
only to be caught in the net of each other
He:
Our bodies entwined
My lips meet yours
Our heat consumes me
I swell w desire
Me:
I feel you against me
firm and determined
our bodies know
there is a joining deeper than skin
and we are bound there

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I just told someone I am from Louisiana “about halfway between Dallas and New Orleans” and I realized that

1. That would be a great song title

and

2. It’s a good descriptive for the small historic town I live in.
I live in Natchitoches, the home of Steel Magnolias. It is the oldest town in the Louisiana Purchase, founded in 1714, and it’s kind of like Brigadoon. Oprah’s been here. They like to film movies here. For a while in the mid-80s, you could run into Darryl Hannah or Shirley McLaine at the grocery. But it’s the kind of place where that is taken with nonchalance. So, you’re famous. Can you make a good roux?
There are churches on every street corner, and unlike our flashier sister to the south, our parades and festivals are aimed as family friendly; some even ban alcohol. We have a state university here that takes up about half the populated west side of town. They built the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame right smack in the middle of what we consider downtown, and some people think it’s butt ugly.
We have greenscapers that put up seasonal flowers along the main street, and flags are hung all over that change with seasons, festivals, holidays and school events. The town hugs a long lake that used to be a river but forgot about it, another good analogy for us; we get from west to east and back by crossing small, crowded bridges with rod iron railings.
I am the office manager at the Episcopal Church, which formally means I’m the rector’s secretary, but since we are between rectors, it means I run the office with our admin. I like my job. I like Episcopalians. We also have a preschool, rent the hall for events, and we have a bell tower with a columbarium in it.
Our past rector moved to Dallas, and a bigger church. She was excellent. She also gave me permission to do healing work in the choir room, so my massage table is tucked in the corner by the piano. I use it sometimes in the afternoons when there aren’t piano lessons to trade with a local hypnotherapist, who is also a sports announcer.
I could say a lot more, about the Historical Society (or as they are fondly referred to locally, The Hysterical Society), about meat pies, Christmas lights, historic homes and plantation tours, how it feels to drive on a brick street. You should come here, and visit. There are Cokes at the hardware store in glass bottles, and we’re littered with B&Bs. The iron grillework alone attracts photographers.
Mostly you should come because it is like Brigadoon. I don’t know how they’ve managed to stay, if not unchanged, then relatively unfazed, over the years, but three generations of my family have lived here, and I don’t think the essence of the place has altered significantly for the ladies who lunch.